IT service management for SMBs in a remote-first world

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Let's start by defining the term "IT Service Management" or ITSM. Basically, it's everything involving workflows, processes, and technology resources organized around the goal of delivering high-quality IT support. As Gartner explains:

"ITSM tools facilitate the tasks and workflows associated with the management and delivery of quality IT services. These are most heavily used by IT service desks and IT service delivery functions."

Traditionally, ITSM has been the focus of enterprise IT, organizations with the massive resources necessary to build and maintain larger IT infrastructures and manage complex IT vendor relationships. But elements of ITSM can benefit companies of all sizes by standardizing tools and workflows, thus helping your entire organization increase efficiency and productivity.

ITSM is a win-win-win. It helps your IT team, the people you support (customers and internal stakeholders), as well as the overall business. A unified approach to service management brings your IT function into alignment with overall business goals, standardizing the delivery of services based on budgets, resources, and results. And it can reduce costs and risks, while ultimately improving both the end user and IT employee experience.

Redefining ITSM for SMBs in a remote-first world

The world has profoundly changed in the last two years, with hybrid work and digital-first communication now a predominant part of everyone's life. The way people work, learn, shop, meet, and consume entertainment has become digital-first and often digital-only. For SMBs and businesses of all sizes, the pandemic accelerated IT digital transformation as a means of accommodating digital-led change in the wider world.

While SMBs don't have the massive resources of budget and large IT teams that enterprises typically have, they often face similar digital transformation challenges and remote working challenges that enterprises do. SMBs are thus compelled to do more with fewer available resources.

So the question is, can ITSM be repurposed and redefined for SMBs operating in today's remote-first world? Instead of having multiple vendors with tools that aren't connected, can ITSM be offered as a consolidated and connected solution built specifically for your needs?

Fortunately, and despite the ongoing nature of digital transformation challenges and remote working challenges, the answer is yes.

What today's redefined ITSM looks like

Before we describe how a redefined ITSM can meet your needs, let's look at some of the challenges of "old school" ITSM. From a historical perspective, ITSM tools were usually built for and geared toward the specific needs of enterprises with fully staffed IT teams deploying complicated workflows and having a lot of available resources (people and money). That pre-pandemic approach to "enterprise ITSM" simply didn't address the needs of SMBs supporting hybrid work. IT teams at SMBs might constitute a hardworking handful of agents, not the "cast of hundreds" enterprises have. Moreover, SMB IT teams don't have "vendor relationship managers" or "workflow optimization" experts in every area of IT specialization. IT professionals at SMBs typically work across functions and are skilled generalists, not hyper-specialized experts.

No savvy SMB would want to pay for enterprise ITSM, because you'd be paying for functionality and complexity you don't need and won't use. Even worse, implementing and maintaining an enterprise ITSM approach would require a larger, more expensive, and more specialized IT team than SMBs typically have. So you waste money and ultimately can't implement a solution that wasn't even designed for you.

A redefined ITSM purpose-built for SMBs removes all the bloat, the functionality and complexity you don't need and surely don't want to pay for. At its core, a redefined ITSM would give your SMB IT team the ability to capture and manage IT support requests, and also provide the consolidated tools to help fix and resolve issues.

“Goldilocks” ITSM: consolidated and easy-to-use tools for SMBs

GoTo Resolve is a purpose-built IT support solution for SMBs working in a hybrid world. It's "the Goldilock’s" version of ITSM redefined for SMBs: not too big, not too small, but just right. GoTo Resolve isn't big and bloated, costing you more than you can pay or forcing your IT team to adapt to us. We're also not too small, because we have the necessary tools and functionality you need in an all-in-one platform and nearly 20 years of experience delivering easy-to-use, reliable, and secure IT management and support tools.

GoTo Resolve is “just right,” delivering a core of consolidated IT support tools purpose-built for the needs of SMBs. We're here to help your SMB IT team work more efficiently in a hybrid world, driving greater value for the people and business you support.

 

About GoTo Resolve

GoTo Resolve is secure, reliable IT from anywhere. It provides trusted remote IT management tools that enable SMB IT teams to access, support, and manage any device for increased employee uptime and better customer satisfaction.